NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Axio, the SaaS leader in cyber risk quantification solutions, today announced the raise of a $23 million Series B investment round. The round is led by ISTARI, a Temasek-founded global cybersecurity firm dedicated to helping clients build cyber resilience, with additional participation from existing investors, including Distributed Ventures, IA Capital Group, and Bob Dudley, Axio Chairman and former CEO of BP. This round brings Axio’s total funding to $30 million, including a $4.5 million Series A round closed in 2018.
Axio will use the investment to accelerate its mission of empowering security and business leaders to discover and respond to the cyber risks that most affect their organizations. Recent growth in cyber-attacks has underscored widespread enterprise susceptibility to business-crippling events like ransomware, demonstrating the inadequacy of status-quo approaches to cyber risk management. Enterprises require a modern, risk-based approach to cyber risk decision-making, which hinges on the ability to quantify cyber risk in financial terms.
“We are ecstatic about securing this Series B investment round that now gives us the means to meet the growing global demand for cyber risk quantification,” said Scott Kannry, CEO and Co-Founder of Axio. “The attack landscape has demonstrated that old, faith-based strategies that simply layer on controls without a clear understanding of what to prioritize have done little to reduce susceptibility.”
President and Co-Founder David White added, “We started this company to help CISOs understand how they should spend their next dollar, through risk mitigation or risk transfer (insurance). Cyber-attacks will happen and since hackers are continuously innovating, CISOs need to improve in tandem to ensure cyber resilience.”
Founded in 2016, Axio’s industry-leading platform, Axio360, helps organizations centrally manage their cyber risk posture through cybersecurity assessments, risk quantification, and insurance stress testing. In recent years, Axio has seen significant adoption of its solution across industries, with a particular focus in high-stakes sectors such as energy, utilities, and other areas of critical infrastructure.
Highlights of Axio’s customer and partner base include:
- 3 of the 10 largest North American utilities providers;
- 2 of the 5 largest North American oil and gas providers; and
- 3 trade associations representing most of the North American energy grid.
As part of the Series B, ISTARI will appoint two additional members to Axio’s Board of Directors. ISTARI’s Chief Technology Officer, Mark Malecki, and Managing Director of the Americas, Curt Dalton, will join the Board chaired by Bob Dudley, former CEO of BP.
“I’m delighted to welcome ISTARI to the Axio team and I look forward to Axio’s continued global expansion,” Dudley said. “I joined Axio last year because I fundamentally believe in its mission to provide an easier and accessible way for security and business leaders to align on a single source of truth around corporate cyber exposure. Boards require deeper and continuous visibility into the state of organizational cyber readiness to ensure that investments and initiatives are properly aligned to broader risk reduction efforts. They are on the hook when a breach happens, and far too often, Board oversight of corporate cyber risk gets lost in the technical details. Axio helps security and business leaders speak a common language centered on the financial impact of risk.”
ISTARI Chief Portfolio Officer, Amit Jasuja, commented: “We are thrilled that Axio is joining the ISTARI Collective and believe the partnership will help expedite its reach and differentiate its capabilities. We invested in Axio because we immediately recognized that the platform would benefit our clients, and it complements the other companies in our portfolio. Organizations need a way to evaluate their cyber risk and make decisions from a business and financial perspective. Axio is a powerful tool for that.”
To learn more about this Series B announcement from Axio CEO and Co-Founder Scott Kannry, please visit axio.com/SeriesB
About Axio
Axio is the leader in SaaS-based cyber management software, which empowers security leaders to build and optimize security programs and quantify risk in financial terms. Axio360 is the only cyber risk management platform to align security leaders, business leaders, and Boards of Directors around a single source of truth about their most critical corporate risks. Since 2016, Axio has been a trusted partner to many of the world’s leading critical infrastructure, energy, manufacturing, and financial services companies, helping drive better visibility and decision-making about cybersecurity priorities and investments. For more information visit axio.com
About ISTARI
Established in 2020 by Temasek, an investment company headquartered in Singapore, ISTARI has a unique model. It is an advisory practice, investor, and educator through its Academy. ISTARI harnesses the collective power of the world’s leading cybersecurity companies, experts, and knowledge to work alongside clients on their journey to becoming digitally resilient. The ISTARI Collective includes Sygnia, BlueVoyant, Ensign InfoSecurity (EIS), Claroty, Armis, Prevalent AI, and Sonrai Security. Headquartered in London, ISTARI has a global presence in the United States, Europe, and Singapore. To learn more, please visit istari-global.com.
